


One Night is Never Enough

by lemon_verbena



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Complete, Cormoran Strike is a Gentleman in Bed, Divorced Robin Ellacott, Eric Wardle is a Good Friend, F/M, Happy Ending, Porn With Plot, Vanessa Ekwensi is a Good Friend, quite a bit of smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:47:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_verbena/pseuds/lemon_verbena
Summary: “Thought for a second there that you were going to set me up with your partner,” Strike says, more to fill the silence than because he’s curious.“What!” Wardle says, laughing again, obviously feeling the effects of his drinks. “You andVanessa?Nah, mate, she’d eat you alive.”Strike raises his brows. “How d’you know that’s not my type?”Wardle shakes his head. “I think it’s your type, and it’s no good for you. Oh, here comes Vanessa, good! She’s still here!”Strike turns to see who the mysterious “she” is, the one he’s been lured here to meet. “She” is strawberry-blonde, curvy, and tall, trailing behind Vanessa with a slightly put-upon expression and a mostly-empty glass of white wine.
Relationships: Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 17
Kudos: 141
Collections: Love Letters: A Cormoran Strike Valentine's Day Fest





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [StrikeLoveLetters](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StrikeLoveLetters) collection. 



> A quick note: There is smut, and both parties are tipsy. If this bothers you, you may wish to read another fic. However, both are enthusiastically consenting and neither is falling-down-drunk, so I do not think I have blurred any lines. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story! My sincerest thanks to everyone who contributed to this fest in any way, from writing to betaing to cheer-leading to commenting or leaving a simple kudos. You all make these events great fun. Thank you!
> 
> As always, I am my own beta, so apologies for any mistakes. Onward!

Strike walks into the pub with very low expectations. The last girl Wardle had set him up with had loud red hair and a loud off-putting laugh and, more importantly than either of those things, had been weird about his leg. So it’s only the promise of free beer that finally drags him through the doors and over to the table where April Wardle is holding court.

“Strike!” she cries out, cheerfully tipsy. “You came! Eric wasn’t sure you’d turn up.”

“I’m here,” he says, shrugging out of his coat and hanging it on the hook next to the table. April is the only person he knows, so he’s loathe to sit down. “He promised to buy me at least two rounds, so.”

“He’s going to put us both in the poorhouse, the rate he’s going,” she says, her smile giving lie to her words. “He’s over by the bar, go tell him I want another of the same, would you?”

He nods, taking welcome leave from the table. April by herself can be tolerable, but her friends tend towards the bright-and-loud, and it wears on him. 

Wardle is easily located at the bar, in heated discussion with a petite Black woman wearing a leather jacket. Strike wonders if she’s the set-up he’s been promised; she’s not unpleasant to look at, but a bit short for his taste, not that it matters. He’s not here for anything but the beer, anyway.

“H’lo,” Strike says as he comes up beside the pair. 

“There you are!” Wardle says, and he too is a few drinks in, from the flush on his cheeks. “I thought you might’ve bailed on me again!”

Strike shrugs, plastering on a smile. “That was one time, let it go, mate.”

He and Wardle are not properly friends, but they make a convincing show of it, slapping each other’s arms as they shake. Strike nods to the woman Wardle was talking to. 

She eyes him sharply, taking in details in a way that reminds Strike of— well, himself. He can see her noting the wear on his clothing, the fact that he hasn’t shaved in two days, the prosthetic leg. 

“This is him, then?” she says to Wardle, before extending a hand. “I’m Ekwensi.”

Strike gives her the firm shake he would give a man, and knows she notices it. 

“Vanessa,” Wardle says, rolling his eyes before turning to Strike. “This is my partner, Vanessa Ekwensi, don’t call her Ness or she’ll take off one of your ears, or so she claims.”

She gives him a cool, sharp smile, like a blade. “I have a collection in a cigar box beneath my bed,” she says. Strike likes her, but is definitely not interested in seeing the inside of her bedroom. He can’t risk Wardle’s quasi-friendship by sleeping with the man’s _partner._ The idea is preposterous.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. “I’ll do my best not to add to your collection.”

She gives him a little nod. “See you don’t.” 

Wardle nudges her with his elbow. “Is she still here?”

Ekwensi gives him a sidelong look. “I’ll go find her,” she says, before sliding off her barstool to slip into the milling crowd like a fish through water.

“That would be my date?” Strike asks, nabbing the abandoned stool to prop himself against before it could be lost to another 20-something hipster. “Oh, April said she wants another of the same, and I’ll have a pint of Doom Bar.”

Wardle barks a laugh. “Yeah, alright, alright, I did promise.” He waves to flag the bartender down, who nods but does not step away from the busty young woman pondering the drink menu. 

“Thought for a second there that you were going to set me up with your partner,” Strike says, more to fill the silence than because he’s curious. 

“What!” Wardle says, laughing again, obviously feeling the effects of his drinks. “You and _Vanessa?_ Nah, mate, she’d eat you alive.”

Strike raises his brows. “How d’you know that’s not my type?”

Wardle shakes his head. “I think it’s your type, and it’s no good for you. Oh, here comes Vanessa, good! She’s still here!”

Strike turns to see who the mysterious “she” is, the one he’s been lured here to meet. “She” is strawberry-blonde, curvy, and tall, trailing behind Vanessa with a slightly put-upon expression and a mostly-empty glass of white wine. 

Wardle steps aside to make introductions. “Strike, this is Vanessa’s friend Robin. Strike is a friend of mine in— sort of a professional capacity, Robin, he’s a good sort.”

Strike extends a hand and gives her another of the firm handshakes he’d given Vanessa; he can see from Robin’s face that she, too, notices the businesslike nature of his grip. 

“Pleasure,” he says, and watches as she gives him a quick once-over.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” she replies, and throws back the rest of her drink. “It seems I’m out of wine; what are you drinking, Mr. Strike?”

“Pint of Doom Bar,” he says, “if the bartender ever gives Wardle here the time of day.”

Robin tosses her long loose hair, somehow managing to do so sardonically. “I’ve got it,” she says. 

“Put it on his tab anyway,” Strike says, “he owes me a couple rounds.”

She glances at him over her shoulder. “I have no intention of buying a single round tonight,” she informs him. “Eric is buying for both of us, I think.”

Strike turns to the man in question, and finds that he and Robin have been ghosted by Wardle and Vanessa both. He snorts a laugh and drops any pretense he might have had about this set-up.

“Did he drag you out tonight too?” he asks. Robin is leaning against the bar in such a way as to make the most of her admittedly rather lovely assets, and he can see the bartender make note of her presence. 

“Was this not your idea?” Robin asks, looking back at him again. “He certainly gave me the impression that you were looking for... company.”

“Did he,” Strike replies conversationally. “It seems I'll have to wring his neck, because I am in fact not long out of a rather lengthy relationship and not looking for much of anything at the moment, besides the aforementioned pint of Doom Bar.”

Robin is by now leaning against the bar with her ribs, angling herself to face Strike while maintaining the bartender’s view of her. 

“Is that so?” she asks, and there is a glimmer of humor in her face now where before she seemed rather disaffected. “What a fine coincidence. I myself am recently single.”

The bartender picks this moment to make his appearance, and Strike watches with distaste as the man takes their order from Robin’s tits more than her face. 

“Ugh,” Robin says after the bartender moves down to the wine to pour her a fresh glass. “What a tosser.”

“He does seem rather enraptured by the female form,” Strike agrees. “I doubt he would have gotten to me for my order before midnight.”

“An absolute sleaze,” she pronounces. “But he pours extremely generous drinks, and so we return, week after week.”

“Well, I thank you for your sacrifice in procuring me a drink,” Strike says as the bartender returns with a white wine for her and his own pint. “It is appreciated.”

He punctuates his gratitude with a long, slow pull from his glass, savoring the way the cool beer slides down his throat. 

Robin is looking at him, evaluating, when he looks back at her. He allows her to look, making no effort to make himself look more appealing. He’s too tired to care, and not especially interested in taking anyone home tonight. It’s been a long, hard week, and he couldn’t afford to buy himself more than one round at this pub if he were paying. He sees no point in trying to impress this Robin, pretty though she may be. 

And she is pretty, her face open and sweet, lips a delicate pink that’s almost certainly not entirely natural. She’s got a lush figure that fills out her blouse and tight jeans nicely, and is tall enough that she’d fit nicely under his arm. He meets her blue-grey graze evenly, knowing that they were both just assessing the other for the same purpose.

But he’s not here for anything more than a few free drinks, he reminds himself. 

“So, Strike,” Robin says. “Why is Eric Wardle trying to pair _you_ off?”

She asks him with more of that sardonic amusement that he’d seen earlier, as though she’s interested in the answer but possibly only so she can make fun of him for it.

“He thinks I have shite taste in women,” Strike says frankly, taking another sip of his pint. “I think he’s trying to head me off at the pass, set me up with women more up to his standards.”

Robin looks at him over the rim of her glass. “I wonder if that’s a compliment to me, or an insult,” she muses aloud.

“Compliment, I think,” Strike says. “Although the last time he tried this it was with— her name is Coco, I think?”

Robin laughs, and it’s a lovely sound, clear to him in the midst of the clamor of the pub. 

“I’m following _Coco_?” she says. “Well, that’s certainly something.”

“It went poorly, not that you seem to need telling,” Strike says, liking the way Robin’s laugh crinkles up her face. It takes her from ordinary-pretty to something different, bright and alive. 

“Calling Coco a hot mess would be an insult to hot messes everywhere,” Robin says.

He snorts into his pint. Robin smiles back at him.

“Yeah, so that went about as well as you might have guessed,” Strike says. “But Wardle seems to be of the philosophy that his wife makes him blissfully happy, so every man ought to find himself one too, so she can make him just as blissfully happy.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Bollocks,” she says. “I can report from the other side of matrimony that it is _not_ all that.”

“Oh?” Strike says, his curiosity piqued but trying not to show it. She looks rather young to be divorced.

Robin glances at the glass of wine in her hand, half-finished already, as though it’s betrayed her. 

“Hm. I don’t normally say it so easily,” she says musingly. “Perhaps I’ve had enough of these for the night.”

She looks back at Strike with an edge of defiance in her gaze. “Anyway, I’m freshly divorced. I married my secondary-school sweetheart, and he cheated on me all through uni, and then I found out and managed to forgive him, and _then_ he not only invited her to our _wedding_ but he went and cheated on me with her _again_ , in our _marriage bed_.”

Strike’s eyebrows are somewhere near his hairline. “The same woman?”

“Yes!” Robin’s tone is past aggrieved and well into murderous. 

“Would you like help with his murder?” he asks, rather than saying something trite and useless, like _I’m sorry,_ though he is. “He sounds like a wanker, and I’m from Cornwall, we have plenty of places to dispose of bodies. We’d just need to get it there.”

Robin laughs at this, looking shocked at her own laughter even as it peals out of her.

“I could drive us,” she says, playing along. “I have a Land Rover. It’s about a century old but I do the maintenance myself and she runs like a dream.”

“There, you see,” he says, gesturing with his free hand. “Perfect. What’s his name?”

“Matthew,” she says, and there’s an entire sea of bitterness in those two syllables. Strikes wonders why on earth Wardle is trying to set Robin up with anyone, as she’s so clearly not even close to being ready for a new relationship.

“That’s a good name for a right bastard. Never met a Matthew I liked,” Strike says. “How about this, I’ll kill him for you, then we road trip down to Cornwall, dispose of the body, and I’ll take you to this chippy in my uncle’s town. It does the best fish and chips you’ve ever had. Fresh-caught fish, and they have this family recipe for the batter that I’ve never had the equal of anywhere.”

Robin is laughing again, one hand on the bar, and Strike can see the fading tan lines of where her rings once sat on her finger. 

He’s known Robin for all of twenty minutes and already knows this Matthew must have been a grade-A wanker, to cheat on a woman like this. He’s made a lot of mistakes in his own life, but at least he can safely say that he’s never been unfaithful to a woman.

“You certainly know how to show a girl a good time,” Robin says, and they’re flirting now, Strike thinks, this is almost certainly flirting, somehow. 

“What can I say, I know the feeling,” he says, and it doesn’t come out nearly as flippant as it had sounded in his head. 

“Oh,” Robin says, blinking, and she recovers quickly at least. “Shall we add another body to our outing?”

“In for a penny,” Strike agrees, and Robin clinks her nearly-empty glass with his. 

“In for a pound,” she toasts, and they both finish their drinks. After, there is silence between them for a moment, and Strike wonders if she also feels it, the sense that the direction of their night is turning on what happens next.

“Would you like another?” he asks, impulsively.

“Just one more, I think,” Robin says. “If I order, will you find us a table?”

He’s tired of perching on the stool, and agrees easily. He moves through the crowd, wondering if it’s too cold for the patio to be open; he could do for a smoke, and you can’t do that inside anymore.

By some miracle, not only is the patio open, but there’s a table available, a tiny bistro two-top that he claims by simply dropping into one of the seats. It’s chill but not frigid outside, the air heavy in a way that suggests rain may be in the forecast despite the clear skies.

“There you are,” Robin says a few minutes later. “I didn’t realize the patio was open.”

“Only for us hardy few,” Strike replies, taking another deep inhalation of his cigarette. He’s smoked it quickly, unsure of how Robin might feel about sitting with him blowing smoke at her. She doesn’t seem the type to appreciate it.

“I thought I smelt it on you,” she says conversationally as she sits, tugging at a sweater that seems to have magically appeared on her body.

“The smoke?” he asks, blowing a plume away from the table and up into the sky. 

“Yeah,” she says, waving a hand dismissively. “Don’t rush on my account, my brother’s taken up the habit and I’m used to it by now.”

“Your brother?” he asks, taking a slower inhalation.

“Yeah, I live with him,” she says, taking a slow sip of wine and watching his cigarette smoke dissipate into the sky. “He was living at home with our mum and da, and after the— the divorce, he moved here to get a job and get out of the house. I think Mum might’ve kicked him out just so I would have someone to live with, honestly, but it’s not bad.”

Strike doesn’t comment on the way Robin stumbled over the word “divorce,” but he does notice. She must not say it aloud often enough to be comfortable with it yet. 

“If I had to live with my sister, I think one of us would be dead inside of a week,” he says. 

Robin laughs. “You know, you seem awfully comfortable discussing murder with a woman you only met tonight.”

He snorts. “I give it even odds that Lucy’s the one taking me out, honestly. I swear, she seems so lovely, but I have seen that woman use a cleaver with great prejudice. I would prefer not to find myself on the business end of one of hers.”

Robin grins over at him. Strike takes another inhalation of his cig, chasing it with his pint. 

“It’s funny,” Robin says as he does this. “I came here tonight so ready to tell Vanessa that she needs to stop Eric from trying to marry me back off, and somehow you’re the first man he’s brought round who hasn’t tried to cop a feel or made a pass by this point in the evening.”

“It’s because they’re all bobbies,” Strike says, pointing at Robin with the hand holding his pint. “There’s something about being on the force that makes you like that, and I don’t know what it is, but it seems to happen to all of them at some point.”

“What about Vanessa?” Robin asks, leaning forward on the table. “Think it’ll happen to her as well?”

Strike pulls a face as he thinks. “Well, she’s properly a detective, isn’t she, so it’s hard to say,” he says. “She doesn’t seem the type to give in to pressure, but I think it’s more like erosion.”

“Nah, she couldn’t be eroded by anything less than the ocean,” Robin says. She takes a dainty sip of her wine. Strike wonders if she’s trying to make it last. “She’s one of the toughest women I’ve ever met. You know what she told me when I told her about Matthew and Sarah?”

He shakes his head, cigarette preventing him from speaking.

“Oh, wait, so she was the person I called when I found out, and I found out because Sarah— that’s the woman—” Robin rolls her eyes at herself as he nods. “Yes, you figured it out— anyway, Sarah left a diamond earring in the bedroom. A real diamond earring! And I found it by _stepping_ on it.”

Strike could have cheerfully done some real bodily harm on Matthew for making Robin’s face do the thing it’s doing now. It’s as though she’s crumpled in on herself, somehow, and he barely knows her but he doesn’t like it anyway. 

“So Vanessa comes and picks me up, and I tell her about this, and she asks me, well, what did you do with the diamond? And I said I left it for Matthew to find, along with my rings. And she says she would’ve kept it and turned it into a pendant and _worn_ it.”

Her shoulders come back at this, as though the reflected badassery of Vanessa is returning to Robin her backbone.

“You could’ve worn it to sign the divorce papers,” Strike says, stubbing out his cigarette butt on the ashtray. 

“Oh, that would’ve been good,” she agrees. “It was generally just terrible. Might’ve been nice to have something sparkly to distract me from his face.”

Strike decides to get them off the topic of her ex, and doesn’t want to risk bringing the conversation around to his own ex. 

“So how did you meet Vanessa?” he asks instead. 

“Someone sent a dismembered hand to the office I was temping at, and I was the one who opened it,” she says immediately, and far more casually than he would have expected.

“A _hand?_ ” he asks, interest piqued despite himself.

Robin nods, sipping her glass. “Yeah. Vanessa was the one who responded to the call. I was able to give them enough information for an arrest to be made, and Van says she was so impressed that she gave me her card and told me to call. I think it was mostly that she thought I was wasted as a temp, but either way, we kept in touch.”

Strike finds that he is also impressed by this.

“That must be some story,” he says, making an opening for her to tell it, if she’d like.

“It was one of the worse days of my life, so perhaps another time,” she says, waving her hand as if to dismiss the topic. Strike is disappointed to not hear it but finds that he’s cheered by the implication that they might do this again. 

Robin takes another sip of her wine and gives him a look over the rim. “I feel as though I'm telling you everything about me, and I don’t even know your first name. Unless— is Strike even your real name? Because if it’s not, then I have absolutely nothing.”

“It is,” he says, impressed by her pivoting the conversation back to him and grateful it’s an easy topic. “My last name.”

“And what’s your first name?” she asks. “If we’re to be committing crimes together, I probably ought to know that. It seems like a personal enough connection to be on a first-name basis.”

He chuckles. “If you call me by my first name, you’ll be the only one who does. I think I have more nicknames than any one person ought to have, and somehow I manage to respond to all of them.”

“Let’s start with the real name before we get to those,” Robin says, and it’s easy to banter with her, the repartee flowing between them. 

“Don’t laugh,” he cautions her, half-seriously. “It’s Cormoran.”

“Say again?” she asks, leaning forward across their tiny table. It’s quiet enough outside that he knows she must be able to hear him, but he repeats himself anyway.

“Cormoran. Like the Cornish giant.”

“Ah yes, the famous Cornish giant,” she says, “the one everyone knows! Cormoran. Hm. Rather a mouthful. I can see why you have nicknames.”

“And most of them have nothing to do with my proper name, either,” he says. 

“Cormoran Strike. That must look properly impressive on a business card,” she says. “If you have them, of course. I have no idea what it is you do, other than that you know Eric through work somehow.”

“I do have business cards,” he says, patting at his pockets and avoiding the question. For some reason, he doesn’t want to get into his line of work right now; he wants to talk about things that take his mind off his ailing business and the matrimonially challenged clients who are only just keeping him afloat. 

Robin watches him as he makes a small show of looking for the slim embossed case which bears his business cards; cards and case both were gifts from Charlotte, and he has stopped carrying them because of this, but he does not see the need to mention this now.

“Don’t have them on you?” Robin asks, taking a very small sip of her wine. There isn’t much of it left, and she seems to be rationing it. “That seems like a very poor way to use business cards, leaving them at home.”

He gives her a look which is reproving in what he hopes is a light manner; he finds that he likes this girl lightyears more than her predecessor Coco. 

“In my defense, I think I actually left them in my office,” he says, reaching for his pint. 

“Aha, an office,” Robin says with the air of someone discovering a clue. “Do you have a desk?”

“I do,” Strike says. “But doesn’t everyone, these days? Even people who work outdoors have paperwork and the like.”

“I think they tend to be more for computers, actually,” Robin replies, giving him a funny look, as though she’s trying not to laugh at him. “Not so much need for real paper these days, is there?”

“I still use real paper,” Strike says with a touch of passion. “In real files, with labels and all. There’s nothing like writing things out longhand to make them stick in your memory, and besides, no one can hack into your files that way.”

Robin does giggle at this, but it doesn’t feel unkind. “Unless they’re literally hacking,” she points out, still giggling. “Like with an axe.”

“Robin, if someone’s broken into my office with an axe to get at my files, I probably have other things on my mind,” he says, which only sets her off again, but he doesn’t mind because she’s got rather a nice laugh. 

“Oh, I like you,” she says as she calms down. “You’re something, aren’t you, Mr. Strike?”

“So I’ve been told,” he says, mourning the fact that they’ve nearly finished their drinks, and she’s already said she’s done after this one. Perhaps he’ll see if Wardle could arrange for them to meet again, by chance of course, because she’s a bit drunk and freshly divorced and he’s not an especially _good_ man but he’s not the sort to take advantage of women in her situation— 

“Would you like to come back to my flat?” Robin asks, interrupting his train of thought. It catches him flat-footed, so instead of replying smoothly, what he manages to say is, “Sorry?”

“My flat,” she repeats, swirling the dregs of her wine in the bottom of the glass. “Would you like to see it?”

He blinks, and in a burst of honesty brought on by his beer and his earlier thoughts, he says, “I’m not an especially good man, and you’ll probably be making a mistake if you bring me home.”

He’s kicking himself for saying it even as the words leave his mouth, but they’re true, anyway, so he stops himself with that and takes another swig of his pint. 

Robin looks at him for a long moment, as though taking his measure once more. “Yes, I have gotten that sense, I think,” she says. “You’re entirely too smooth-talking to be a good idea. But you see, I have made plenty of mistakes, and I didn’t know those were mistakes when I made them. With you, I am forewarned, and I think a girl is entitled to make a few mistakes for herself, don’t you?”

He only nods, not trusting his traitorous mouth.

“Besides,” Robin says, knocking back the last of her wine. “I haven’t laughed like that in a good long time, and I do so love to laugh.”

Strike takes a long pull from his glass, bringing it nearly to empty. “I have warned you, and consider my duty discharged,” he says. “I would like the record to show that I made a good faith effort to head you off at the pass.”

“Mr. Strike, we started the night off with you offering to murder my ex-husband,” she says, toying with her glass, nearly fluttering her lashes at him. “I would say that you rather started it.”

“You make a fair point,” he says, holding her gaze.

Her smile is slow and sumptuous, like a cat uncurling in the sunlight. “I think you’ll find I can be rather clever.” 

He drains the last of his pint, licks his lips, and smiles back at her. “I concede to your cleverness,” he says. “I just need to grab my coat.”

“I’ll meet you out front,” she says with a nod, getting to her feet. Strike notices the curves of her body as she arches back into a luxurious stretch, which he suspects might have been partially for his benefit anyway. 

He’s not an especially good man, but— “Robin?” Strike says, unable to stop himself. 

“Yes?” She pauses, only a step or two from their table.

“If you should change your mind—” he says, hesitating.

Robin smiles at him, and this smile is soft, almost fond. “I have drinks at my flat, and food, and a bed. We can sort out which of those things we should like to partake in when we arrive, how about that?”

He nods, reassured. He’d hate for her to feel pressured once they arrive. He prefers his bedmates to want to be there. 

When he stops inside to get his coat, he sees that the table is now occupied by a group of young men who are clearly dressed to attempt to charm their way into some unlucky girls’ bed. He digs his coat out from theirs, and accidentally makes eye contact with one of them.

“Struck out, old man?” the unpleasantly greasy-looking younger man says, giving Strike an unfavorable once-over that couldn’t be more opposite Robin’s.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he says, shrugging into the coat and looking towards the door, where Robin is looking back at him. He nods to her, and she waves, just a flicker of her fingers.

Strike rides the satisfaction of the young man’s bafflement all the way over to Robin. She takes his arm, and they set out into the faded twilight.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s a quiet Tube ride, but Strike doesn’t mind. Robin sits next to him and curls up against his side, laying her head on his shoulder, their thighs pressed together. 

There are two matters he wants to settle before they disembark, so he leans his head down to murmur to her.

“Robin?”

“Mm?” she replies, not opening her eyes. 

“Not falling asleep already, are you?” he teases gently. She shakes her head.

“No, just resting my eyes. I stare at computer monitors all day.”

“Ah.” He inhales. “Robin, I only have one leg.”

At this she looks at him, their faces close together. “Yes,” she agrees. 

“You know?” he asks, surprised. 

“You can see the outline of your prosthesis when you stick out your leg,” she says, her tone relaxed. “Also, you favor that side a little. It doesn’t take a genius to adduce it.”

“Adduce?” he says, because it is a strange feeling to have a burden suddenly lifted from one’s shoulders, and he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Deduce is subtracting facts. Adduce is when you put them together. I hate when people get that wrong, but everyone does,” she says. He smiles to himself at how put-out she sounds; this is clearly a grudge of long standing.

“Well, it’s— I lost it below the knee,” he says. “I’ll have to take it— my prosthesis off.”

She nods again. “Of course you will. Stands to reason; you could hardly sleep in it, could you?”

He cannot believe it is this simple; it usually isn’t. She hasn’t even asked how he lost it.

“I can, but it’s fucking uncomfortable,” he says. “Also, Robin, didn’t you say you live with your brother?”

She snorts, smiling. “Yeah, he’s out of town. His flavor of the month decided that they really, truly needed to go to Blackpool, of all places, so he’s gone until Monday morning.”

Both of his concerns assuaged, Strike moves his arm from the back of the seat to drape over Robin’s shoulders. She shifts under its weight and exhales, relaxed. She smells like white wine and cigarette smoke and faintly of something fresh, citrusy perhaps. He has several stops to meditate on it before she nudges him to rise.

“This is us,” she says, and Strike can do nothing but follow.


	3. Chapter 3

Robin’s flat is small but cozy, which reflects what Strike knows of her so far. Unlike his own bare-bones flat, more a place to sleep than a place to live, Robin’s flat looks like the sort of place where one can relax and enjoy oneself.

It’s impossible to turn off his investigative brain as he hangs his coat on the rack and watches Robin kick off her heeled boots. He can see things that probably belong to her brother, video games controllers and ashtrays; convenient, those. There are framed photos that must be of their family, a group of round-faced, smiling blondes. 

“Would you like a drink?” Robin asks, padding into her kitchen. It’s small, but seems like it’s in full working order. Strike can’t help but think of his own neglected kitchen, which he uses more to reheat takeaways than actually cook.

“Sure,” he says, “if you’re having one. What have you got?”

Robin frowns at the shelf. “Mostly wine, apparently. I could have sworn— aha!” She retrieves a bottle. “Brandy?”

He smiles at her satisfaction. “A finger or two won’t hurt me,” he agrees, leaning against the arm of her sofa. It’s tall and sturdy, and long enough that Strike thinks he might be able to sleep on it, if there’s ever a need. 

Robin pours them each a glass and comes over towards him. She’s shorter out of her boots, but she’s still more than tall enough for his taste. She walks right up to him, stopping between the toes of his shoes, nearly inside the V of his legs. 

She hands him his drink and watches as he throws it back in one smooth motion. It’s not bad, but cheaper than he’d really prefer from a brandy. Acceptable. He sets the empty glass on the table behind him.

“There you go,” Robin says. “I promised you a drink, and I have provided.”

Strike nods. “Aren’t you going to drink yours?”

“I’m not much for brandy,” she says with a shrug. “Just seemed wrong to only pour one.”

She looks up at him through her lashes and he throws his head back, surprised into laughter. It’s a nice feeling, he thinks, to be laughing in the company of a beautiful woman who’s looking at him like this. 

“Then give it to me,” he says, holding out his hand. “No point in wasting perfectly fine booze.”

She gives it to him, and their fingers don’t so much brush as slide along one another. 

He throws it back as smoothly as the first, enjoying the burn of it. This evening is going much, much better than he’d been expecting.

“There we go,” he says, setting the second glass down beside the first. “You have provided.”

Robin is still standing between his knees, and he can see her fingers brushing the material of her top, smoothing it out. He wonders if she’s nervous. She certainly hasn’t been acting nervous so far. 

Strike’s eyes flicker to her lips, then back up to her eyes. She’s tipsy, but not too drunk— not slurring her words, eyes clear, body language sure. Their trip to her flat gave her time to sober up.

“Would you like anything else?” she asks, voice soft, almost husky. “I would hate to leave you wanting for anything.”

“I can’t think of anything,” he says, looking down to her lips again. 

“Nothing at all?” she asks, swaying just a touch closer. “I would hate to be a bad hostess—” 

But he doesn’t find out what else Robin was going to say, because Cormoran leans forward to kiss her, bringing his lips to hers at slightly the wrong angle. Their noses press together awkwardly, and he can feel Robin’s smile as she steps forward against him, tilting her face to correct their mouths.

Her arms slip up around his neck, pulling him close, as the kiss takes off; her mouth tastes of white wine when he opens his mouth to hers, their tongues slipping against each other easily. She is hot and sweet in his arms, and he grabs her hips, enjoying the full swell of them in his broad hands. 

She bites at his lip, just a little, and in response he tugs her flush to him, their bodies meeting fully. He cannot stop kissing her, letting it turn messy as he mouths as her jaw, and he knows she cannot miss the growing pressure of his cock against her stomach. 

He’s in no rush, though, enjoying the way she’s panting at his temple as he learns the curve of her jaw, scraping his teeth at the tender place where it meets her neck. She gasps, shuddering, and the movement stirs his cock even more.

“Robin,” he murmurs in her neck. 

“Mm?” she hums back, fingers coming up to toy with the curls at his temples as if to urge him on. 

Cormoran doesn’t reply for a moment, too focused on the way she responds so sweetly to the kisses he presses down her neck. Her head is thrown back as he leans over her, chasing.

“Sit down?” he finally remembers to ask, only managing the single phrase when it returns to him.

“Oh, yes,” she says, and steps away from him to allow him to move from the arm of the couch around to the front. He all but collapses backward onto the deep, comfortable piece of furniture. 

Seconds later, Robin is following him, not beside but _atop_ him, straddling his lap, looking down at him.

“Is this alright?” she asks, her hair falling like a curtain around his face, creating the illusion that they are the only two people in the world. Cormoran couldn’t summon another woman’s name right now unless you held a gun to his head; the world to him is this couch, and the woman on it with him.

“This is— good,” he manages to say, most of the blood in his body focused somewhere other than his brain. “Very good.”

Robin settles her weight atop him, and all cognitive function collapses; the sweet hot pressure of her cunt against his cock, even through their combined layers of clothing, short-circuits him. The brandy must be doing its good work, he thinks foggily, because he can’t think about anything but rolling his hips up against Robin— Robin— Robin— 

“Cormoran,” she gasps as he thrusts up against her. She grabs at his shoulders to steady herself as he does it again, almost lazily, enjoying the way she shudders and presses back. 

“Mm,” he hums. “Yeah.”

Robin’s hands are at his chest, and it takes him a moment to understand what she’s doing— 

“Take off your shirt?,” she says, biting back a moan as he rolls his hips again. 

“Yes ma’am,” he says, releasing his grip on her hips to fumble with the material of his shirt. He gets rather distracted, though, because Robin is following her own instructions, and he's enjoying the view as she pulls off her top.

“Cormoran!” she cries, when she sees that he’s not done. “Focus, please.”

He grins up at her, gaze roving over the milky skin and pale pink bra she has revealed to him, and he rolls his hips again as he finishes getting his shirt off. Trying not to think too hard about the extra weight he’s been carrying in his stomach region, or the fact that he’s as hairy as a coconut, he throws his shirt onto the floor behind Robin.

She presses back against him, and his cock isn’t so much _hard_ as it is rock-solid and throbbing, chafing at its confinement. 

Robin runs her hands down his chest, fingers playing with the hair on his pectorals, and leans back in to kiss him. He lets himself get lost in the kiss, the interplay of their lips and teeth and tongues, the press of her skin to his.

He tries different things, searching for what makes Robin tick, and discovers that she doesn’t like pinching but does like squeezing, that her neck is sensitive but not nearly as much as her collarbone. He also discovers that Robin has deft fingers that like to grasp and pull at him, and that he— _likes_ it. 

He bites her collarbone, soothing it with broad strokes of his tongue, and Robin weaves her hands into his hair and tugs, directing his mouth against her. He grabs handfuls of her lovely arse and she twists and presses down against him, leaning down to lick at his ear. He scrapes his teeth down towards her breast and Robin leans back to unhook her bra, tossing it behind her and baring her breasts to him— he takes a moment to savor the sight before leaning down to take one hard pink peak into his mouth, tongue flicking at her nipple while she pulls his hair so hard he can feel it right in his cock. 

It’s messy and hot and most of Cormoran’s concentration is devoted to finding new ways to make Robin whimper and moan, which she does with abandon, steadily growing louder but never quite fully voiced. 

It could be minutes or hours later that Robin is gasping, rocking against him in a steady, nearly excruciating rhythm, and Cormoran is about three seconds away from tearing her jeans off and plunging into her right there. 

“Robin,” he manages to say, his fingers digging into the pale flesh of her hips to a point that he thinks must be painful.

“Yeah?” she asks, the word nearly a whimper as he licks up her neck. 

“Do you— you said—” He cannot focus. “Bed?”

“Yes,” she says at once. “Fuck, yes— please—”

He cannot let go of her for a long moment, the idea of letting her _go_ at odds with his need for her. 

“Cormoran,” she pants into his ear, “bed, let’s go, come on.”

She sounds as wrecked as he feels; he lets go, allows her to pull away from him to stand on unsteady legs. He wonders if he’s imagining the slightly darker patch at the apex of her thighs, if she’s wet enough to have dampened denim. 

“Gimme— I need a sec,” he says, trying to inhale deep enough to steady himself. “My— leg.”

Robin blinks, gaze flickering down to where his prosthesis is still strapped to his leg.

“Right,” she says. “Take your time. It’s the door on the left.”

He cannot look at her for a moment, the heat and urgency gone from him at this stark reminder of what his body is, what it isn’t.

Robin leans over him, her now-ruddy breasts swinging into his line of vision. A lovely distraction. He looks up.

“I’ll be waiting for you,” she says, and presses an open-mouthed kiss at the corner of his mouth. His tongue flickers out, trying to catch a taste of her, but Robin is dancing back, her body lithe and lovely in the warm lighting. He watches as she goes to the short hall, taking the leftmost of the three doors, glancing over her shoulder as she slips out of sight. 

“Fuck,” he says aloud, as surprised as anyone by this turn of events. It’s been a long time since he felt this in tune with someone else, so easily adapting to her needs even as she does the same to him. He rubs a hand over his jaw, damp from Robin’s kisses, and knows he would walk through fire to see this night to its end. 

“Alright, Strike,” he mumbles to himself, hauling himself upright by using the arm of the couch as a brace. “Focus, you dumb sod. Don’t fuck it up.”

Robin’s door is open, and he is startled as something flies out the door and lands in the hall. 

It’s her jeans. 

“Fuck,” he says again for good measure, turning his steps to Robin’s bedroom with haste. It’s lit by nothing but a floor lamp, and he’s grateful to see that she has a large bed.

She’s reclining on the bed, clad in nothing now but her panties, the picture of relaxation. Her panties are blue, and— soaked. 

“Fuck me,” Cormoran says, standing in the door, struck dumb by how fucking _lovely_ Robin is in the lamplight. 

“Well, I’m trying,” Robin says, and it takes him a moment to realize what she’s saying. When he processes it, he starts laughing. 

Robin is grinning at him, one arm cradling her breasts. He can see at least one place where she’ll have a proper hickey in a few hours, and there’s a swell of pride in his chest; _he_ did that.

“Well, are you just going to stand there, or what?” Robin asks.

Cormoran sobers. His cock is still hard, but before he can do anything about it, he has to finish undressing.

“I have to take off my—” he stumbles on _prosthesis_ and lands on “—leg.”

Robin nods, waving a hand in a sweeping, gracious motion. “Of course. Please feel free to disrobe with whatever haste seems necessary. I’ll just wait here.” 

She lies on the bed, half-lidded eyes tracking his movements as he comes into the room. The bed dominates the space, leaving just enough room for a dresser and a tiny night-stand. The bed is against the wall on one side, a clear sign that Robin doesn’t share it with anyone on a regular basis. She’s on the side closer to the wall.

Cormoran stands beneath her gaze as he unbuttons his slacks and lets them fall to the floor, trying not to think too hard about what she will think of his leg; he usually does this while the other party is also undressing, giving him cover to do it quickly and unobserved. This is— the opposite of that.

But there is no judgment in Robin’s eyes. In fact, she’s not looking at his stump at all. 

“Gracious,” Robin says appreciatively as Cormoran’s cock springs free, tenting his boxers proudly. “Is that for me?”

And all of a sudden he’s not self conscious any longer; Robin is all but licking her lips at him, and he knows he can give her what she’s looking for, leg or no leg. He shoves down his boxers and enjoys the way Robin’s eyebrows raise at the sight of him, thick and red, beads of precum dripping for her. 

“Cormoran,” Robin says, a hair's breadth from whining. “Please.”

“I need to deal with this,” he says, gesturing to his leg as he steps out of his clothing. 

“Fine,” she says, eyes not leaving him as he sits on the edge of her bed to fumble the straps off.

“Wait,” he says in a moment of clarity as he rolls the sock off his stump. “Robin— do you have a condom?”

“Right, jesus,” she says, rolling over to her nightstand. Cormoran heaves a sigh of relief; he doesn’t think he has one, and even if he did, it’s in his wallet, hanging in his coat pocket by the front door. 

He hears the wrapper tearing open as he drops the last of his prosthesis to the floor, uncaring. He can deal with it later; his priorities are elsewhere. 

He swivels his hips to swing his legs atop the bedspread, and Robin is there, nearly tackling him down into the pillow as she kisses him. 

Cormoran can’t remember why he was nervous as Robin bites at his lower lip, a condom in her hand. They kiss and kiss as their bodies realign, Robin shoving her poor panties down and kicking them off as she moves alongside him. 

“God, you’re so big,” she murmurs as one of her hands slides down to wrap slim fingers around his cock. “Mm, Cormoran.”

“Yeah,” he says, his voice rasping out as she jacks him a few times, experimentally. “Fuck, Robin— give me that condom, I need—”

“Yes please,” she says, as he grabs the condom from her hand to roll it down his aching cock. 

“You’re so polite,” he says, smiling at her as she scrambles to straddle him once more. “Yes please, she says.”

“Cormoran,” she says, admonishing, as she takes him in hand once more, lowering her cunt to meet him. He spares a thought for how wet she is but the moment the head of his cock touches her, he knows it won’t be a problem. 

“God,” he breathes out, “Robin—”

“Yes?” she asks, arching a brow at him, her chest heaving as much as his as she holds him down with on hand on his shoulder, one at his cock. 

“Robin,” he says again, not knowing what she’s waiting for, they’re right _there,_ so close— 

“Yes?” she asks again, nearly giggling now, and he loves that she’s laughing but he doesn’t love that she’s not _moving_ and then in a burst of clarity he understands. 

“Robin, beautiful, perfect Robin,” he says, hands kneading at her hips, “ _please_ won’t you—”

And she slides down onto him, not swiftly but steadily, pressing down onto his cock until he is seated deep within her slick heat. 

“Fuck,” Cormoran groans, “Robin— fuck—”

“Uh-huh,” she whimpers, nodding. She doesn’t seem to be able to say anything else, and Cormoran gives her a moment to adjust to him; he’s not the longest in the world, but he’s got girth to spare, and he doesn’t know how long it’s been for her. 

The moment gives him time as well, to focus on making sure he can last, because he’s still a bit tipsy from earlier and entirely drunk on Robin, and he wants to make it _good_ for her, wants to make her forget her cheating ex and her divorce and her own goddamn name, wants to fuck her until— 

“Cormoran,” she whispers. “I— could you—”

She rocks on him, just a little, and he understands what she’s asking for. Robin’s hands are braced on his chest, her fingernails digging into his pectorals just a little as he rolls his hips up into hers, much as he’d done before.

“Yes,” she breathes. “Fuck, that’s so good.”

Cormoran bites on his lower lip, holding her hips steady as he rocks up into her, the clutch of her slick cunt an exquisite torture as he presses up into her body, letting her ride him gently, letting her set the pace. 

He can feel it as she adjusts to him further, and somehow she lets him just a bit _deeper_ and he thinks that they must have fused, become one being of slick sweat and panting need.

“Oh,” she’s murmuring, “oh— Cormoran— please—”

And he can’t chastise her for manners, because he understands, this trembling, aching thing they are doing so far removed from the impersonal fuck he’d been expecting that he cannot fully conceptualize it. 

“Like that, honey?” he asks, sliding one hand from her hip up along her side to pluck gently at her nipple. 

“Yeah,” she says, eyes closed, breath catching in her throat. “Yeah, please—”

“Anything you want, Robin,” he promises recklessly, as she begins rocking her hips faster. “However you want—”

“Faster,” she pants, and he obliges, hips moving along with hers, and he is so deep inside Robin’s hot wet cunt, so deep— “fuck,” she whimpers, “oh my god—”

Her thighs are trembling, from the workout or from pleasure he doesn’t know, but she stops moving and he doesn’t and suddenly he’s thrusting in and out of her at a breakneck pace and it’s _so good_ , too good— 

“Robin,” he is saying as her arms give out, lowering her face to his neck as he pistons up into her, driven by her moans. “Fuck, honey, you’re so good— so good, Robin—” 

“Please, please, please,” she’s chanting to the rhythm he’s setting, and then she tilts her face down to sink her teeth into the cordon of muscle where his neck and shoulder meet, and it’s nearly over right there.

“Oh god,” he grunts, focusing very hard on not finishing, losing his pace. “ _Fuck,_ Robin.”

“Bad?” she asks, panting. 

“No, honey,” he says, back under control, “good. Too good. Jesus.”

“Oh.” He can hear how smug he’s made her in that single syllable, and he can’t help the grin that breaks out onto his face. Robin pushes herself back up on her elbows, looking at him, and smiles back. 

“Fuck,” he says, and Robin nods. 

“Yeah.” She blows some hair off her face. “Fuck.”

He’s still inside her, and he can feel her inner muscles contracting around him. He glances up to meet her eyes.

“Are you—” he starts to ask, and at the look on her face knows he’s right.

“Kegels are good for a woman’s health,” she informs him airily, and he snorts and pulls her down to be kissed. 

“Good for your health,” he says between kisses, “bad for my longevity.”

She crinkles her nose at him. “You’re doing fine,” she says, kissing his cheek. “I have absolutely no complaints.”

They lay together for a moment, skin becoming sticky from sweat but neither willing to move. Cormoran stays hard inside her, alleviating that concern at least. His cock seems as determined to finish this as he is.

Finally, Cormoran exhales. “Okay,” he says. 

Robin pulls back to look at him. “Okay,” she agrees. 

“Can I— will you let me move us?” he asks, plan having formed as they lay.

“Sure,” Robin says. “As long as it involves more of you fucking me like that.”

She says the words like she’s daring to do so, and Cormoran wonders if she ever talked dirty with her ex. He suspects not, and the idea that she’s doing things with him that she didn’t do before is— good. It sends a frisson of pleasure through him.

“Trust me, honey,” Cormoran tells her. “That is my only plan for the rest of the night.”

Robin bares her teeth in a grin, and Cormoran kisses it off her face. She’s pliant in his arms, following his directions as he slips out of her to press his back to the wall, and Robin comes to sit on his lap once more. 

“Don’t you want a pillow?” she asks as she crawls up his body, and Cormoran blinks and nods.

“That’s a good thought.” He accepts the pillow Robin grabs and maneuvers it behind his back, cushioning him from the plaster.

“Well, I’m very clever,” Robin reminds him as she takes his cock once more in hand.

“Yes, you are,” Cormoran says, low and rough, as Robin notches his cock at her opening. 

“It’s good to be appreciated,” she murmurs to him as she once more slides down, taking him fully into her wet cunt with ease this time. 

“I appreciate you,” he manages to say as Robin rocks down into his hips, the changed angle opening her more fully to him. “I appreciate you a lot.”

Robin’s breathy giggle is a reward as he wraps his arms around her waist, hands pressing into her shoulders as they move together. 

“Oh,” Robin says, hardly more than a catch in her throat as he thrusts shallowly. “Oh—”

“Good?” he asks on an exhale. 

“Uh-huh,” she whimpers, fingers clutching at his shoulders, his neck. “Mm, please—”

Cormoran tries to mimic the movement that had evoked such a reaction, and when Robin’s teeth bite into her lip he thinks he’s got it, and he does it again, and again—

“Oh my god,” she’s whispering now, and Cormoran chases it, can feel the fluttering of her cunt around him as he rocks against her, as she presses down against him, taking him so impossibly deep— 

“Come on, honey, let me hear you,” Cormoran tells her, his mouth against her neck, his pace unchanging. He can’t keep this up forever but he won’t need to, not if he’s gotten it right. “Let go, Robin, I want to hear you. Is it good, honey?”

“Yeah,” she says, voice tight. “Yeah, yeah— Cormoran, please—”

The sound of his name on her lips is like a jolt of electricity, straight down his spine to his cock, and he keeps moving, thrusting with purpose, with a clear goal in mind.

“Oh my god— oh—”

Robin is quivering, above and atop and around him in every way that matters. Their bodies are pressed too close together for him to get a hand on her clit, but from the angle she’s riding him at, that doesn’t seem to be an issue. He wraps one hand in her hair, not tightly, just enough for him to tilt her head back so he can get to her neck. 

“Please, please— oh my god, please, I want—”

Robin’s voice is breaking as she shudders, and Cormoran wants nothing more than to give her this. He ignores his own pleasure, setting it to the side as unimportant, because if he can just bring Robin over the edge he will have earned his own orgasm.

He licks a wide stripe up her neck, scrapes his teeth over where her pulse is flickering, and bites gently at her earlobe. Her fingernails dig into the meat of his shoulders, and Cormoran doesn’t stop, can’t stop— 

“Oh my god, Cormoran,” Robin sobs, “oh my god—”

Her inner muscles clamp down on him, as though trying to keep him inside of her cunt, and one of her hands comes up to grab a handful of his hair, and with this sharp sweet pain suddenly Cormoran loses control of himself and his orgasm bubbles up, unstoppable and inevitable, like a tsunami wrecking him. It takes him over, and he is saying something but cannot figure out what as his mind goes blank.

“Fuck,” Cormoran hears himself saying, “ _fuck,_ ” because the pleasure is incredible, but he’s sure he didn’t bring Robin with him. 

“Was that good?” Robin asks him, petting his cheek gently. Her face is shiny with sweat, her voice breathy. 

“Yeah,” he answers her, turning to press a kiss to her palm. “But it was too soon. Oh, jesus.”

His vision feels faded around the edges, as though the moment of whiteout that accompanied his orgasm is lingering along with the shaky, lapping waves of pleasure still washing through him.

“Too soon?” Robin asks, still petting him. She doesn’t seem upset with him, which is baffling. He knows she must have been approaching her own orgasm; isn’t she disappointed? Angry?

Cormoran pulls back to look her in the face; his cock is still inside her, just starting to soften now. He smooths his thumb across her cheek. 

“I left you behind,” he says.

“Oh,” Robin says, “that’s alright.” She tosses her head, throwing back her hair. It sticks to their skin, loose and shiny. 

“Alright?” Cormoran says, blankly. In what universe?

Robin shrugs. “I don’t usually cum like this, it’s fine.”

She shifts, jostling his cock loose from within her, and Cormoran moves to make sure the condom doesn’t leak, pinching it shut to allow Robin to shift off of his lap to collapse into a boneless heap on the bed.

“There’s a bin over there,” she says, pointing, “and the washroom is next door to this one if you’d like.”

She sprawls across the covers, stretching and uncurling, as though he hasn’t abandoned her halfway to her orgasm. Cormoran deals with the condom and tries to decide if using the toilet is worth dealing with his prosthesis. He’s off-balance, as though things have gone out of order. 

He wraps the condom in one of the tissues from the night stand and tosses it in the direction of the indicated bin, not looking to see if it goes in because his focus is back on Robin. Robin, who hadn’t intended to meet anyone at all, who’d somehow decided that he was the mistake she’d like to make. He’ll need to rinse out his mouth and wipe down his body at some point, but that can wait for now.

Cormoran isn’t going to let himself be the sort of mistake who leaves a woman wanting.

He moves himself towards Robin’s prone form, laying on his side next to her where she laid on her back.

“Yes?” Robin murmurs, peeking at him through her lashes. “If you’re ready to go again already, you’d better look into bottling that, you’ll make a mint.”

Cormoran leans in to kiss her, open-mouthed and easy-going, not pressing, not rushing, just kissing. Robin makes a contented noise into his mouth, reciprocating, and Cormoran smiles. He nudges at her nose with his, pressing kisses along her jaw, her cheek.

“It’s not gentlemanly to leave a lady wanting,” he says into the soft skin of her neck. 

“Mm, is that so,” Robin says, her earlier protestations of being fine seemingly forgotten. “Are you keeping chivalry alive, then?”

One of her hands curves along his neck, guiding and urging him on, and Cormoran enjoys the press of her skin against his. He nibbles at the line of her collarbone, Robin sighing beneath him. 

She’d been reasonably close when he lost control, he thinks, and now he’ll have to bring her back to that edge— but it’s hardly a hardship, is it, to pleasure a beautiful woman. 

Robin’s shifting, thighs pressing together, and Cormoran slips his free hand along her leg, gently seeking admittance to her still-wet cunt. She lets his hand slide between her legs, and his fingers glide through the dusting of curls to her slick-hot entrance.

“Oh,” Robin murmurs, eyes hooded as Cormoran learns the shape of her cunt, tracing the outer lips, dipping his thick fingers just barely into her. 

Cormoran is still kissing her neck, moving his way down towards her breasts. “Let me take care of you, Robin,” he says, voice rough in his throat. 

“Alright,” she says, fingers carding through his hair. “You won’t hear a complaint from me.”

This feels like a little victory, and Cormoran channels his triumph into finding new ways to make Robin gasp. He finds her clit, but doesn’t go right for it, circling it gently with one fingertip as his tongue laves over one of her rosy nipples. 

Robin’s hips jerk as he applies a little more pressure, and he keeps up the motion, steady and focused; with his own pleasure out of the way, Cormoran’s entire attention is on Robin— the way she bites her lip, turns her head, sighs. He suckles on her breast, teasing the nipple gently with his tongue.

One of her hands fists in his hair, and he knows he’s on the right track; her hips have begun to rock into his hand, up against the pressure of him. He wishes he could slip inside her again, feel the ripples of her cunt around him as he brings her off, but he’s not as young as he used to be. 

“Cormoran,” Robin whimpers above him. “Fuck, Cormoran—”

He gives her breast a last kiss before looking up at her, the sight of her flushed cheeks and hazy eyes a salve to his ego. 

“Yes, honey, what do you want,” he asks, fingers steady at her clit still. “Let me make you feel good.”

“Mm, I want,” she starts, then gasps. “Oh, please— inside me, please.”

His cock gives an interested twitch, but he knows there’s no use waiting for it. Instead, he shifts his weight, moving down the bed to give Robin’s lovely cunt his undivided attention. 

“Aw,” Robin pouts when his fingers cease their ministrations, but she is quickly placated by Cormoran placing her legs over his shoulders.

“You don’t have to—” she starts to say, but Cormoran shakes his head, entranced by her slick, swollen lower lips. 

“Let me,” he says again, gently spreading her open to his gaze, and leaning his head down for a long, slow lick over the entirely of her cunt. 

“I only meant that I probably don’t taste— oh, oh—”

Robin is distracted mid-sentence by Cormoran’s application of the flat of his tongue to her clit, probing softly at the tender flesh at the apex of her entrance. It’s swollen from his fingers, and Robin responds beautifully as he licks at it tenderly, wrapping his arms around her thighs where they lay on his shoulders. 

“Oh, yes— yes, like that—” Robin moans, her hips beginning to move again as she chases the pleasure he is so happy to give her. He buries his face in her, ignoring the slightly acrid taste of the condom in favor of Robin’s own flavor. She’s not a romance novel heroine, tasting of fruit or candy, but a real woman who tastes of salt and musk, her own utterly individual flavor sitting rich on his tongue. He devours her, licking into every crevice, his nose bumping at her clit, her sighs of pleasure driving him on. 

Robin seems content to let him tongue-fuck her all day, but Cormoran knows that it won’t be enough to bring her off, not properly. Her body rewards him with fresh slickness as he unwinds a hand from her thigh to slide up and underneath her, pressing up to her cunt with his now-rested fingers. 

She takes one finger so easily that he immediately gives her two, adjusting his body’s position so he can focus his mouth at her clit while pumping his fingers into her steadily.

“God,” Robin bites out as he crooks his fingers, seeking the texture of her g-spot. “ _Fuck._ Cormoran—”

He has her now, he thinks, moving his fingers and mouth in tandem. He finds a rhythm he can keep up and falls into a groove, pushing her higher and higher, the muscles in her thighs getting tight around his ears. He brings his other hand from her leg to her clit, assisting his tongue as it gets sore, and he leans back to look up at Robin— who is already looking down at him. 

“Yeah?” he asks, feeling almost as though he’s getting back the pleasure he’s giving her. “Good, honey?”

“Uh-huh,” she whimpers, nodding, not looking away from him. “Please, please, please—”

This time he will not fail her. Cormoran brings his head back down to Robin’s cunt, sucking on her clit, not stopping his movement inside her. Her inner walls are fluttering around his fingers, her hips jerking against his face, and he knows she’s getting close. 

“Come on, honey, let me hear you,” he tells her, flicking his tongue at her clit.

“Oh my god, Corm— oh, fuck—”

Robin’s face is flushed and shiny with sweat, the muscles in her neck taut as he winds her tighter and tighter. 

“That’s it, Robin,” he murmurs to her, speeding up his hands as fast as he can manage. Almost there, almost— “Let go, honey, I’ve got you.”

He gives her a third finger and sucks on her clit again and Robin’s hands yank at his hair, holding him in place as she presses up against his mouth.

“Oh god, oh god— fuck!” 

Robin’s cries of pleasure are muffled by her thighs where they’ve clamped around his ears, and Cormoran just keeps moving, fucking her through her orgasm as it crests, feeling it shake through her as her body moves around and beneath him. 

Slowly, as she begins to relax, he gentles his mouth, the thrusts of his fingers, until he’s barely moving at all. Robin’s cunt is sweet against his tongue now, and she shudders and stills.

She swats at his head as he experimentally moves against her again. “Stop that, jesus,” she says, fondly exasperated and panting. 

“Done?” Cormoran asks, still propped on his elbows between her thighs, which have fallen open around him. 

“Sensitive,” she says, rubbing a hand over her eyes. “Oh my god, that was— whoo.”

He is bathing in the reflected afterglow of Robin’s orgasm as he crawls up alongside her. Robin kindly yanks the pillow from where they were using it along the wall to back besides hers, so that Cormoran can flop his head down onto it. He lays down alongside her, and she wriggles herself closer so that they can press together, stickily skin to skin atop her poor bedspread. 

Cormoran presses a kiss to Robin’s cheek, once more on his side while she lays on her back. He looks down at her, enjoying the rolling landscape of her body alongside his, so pale and flushed beside his dark, hairy bulk. 

“Comfortable?” Robin asks, pressing the back of one of her hands against his chest. 

Cormoran smiles, feeling as loose and relaxed as it is possible for him to be. “Extremely,” he says. “You’re a wonderful hostess.”

She snorts a laugh. “And you’re very chivalrous. What a lovely pair we make.”

Cormoran captures her hand with his, bringing it up to press a kiss to her palm. “Maybe Wardle was on to something, after all.”

This goads Robin into true laughter, making her stomach shake. Cormoran can’t keep a straight face, and joins her. 

“Can you imagine his face,” Robin says as she subsides, “if I were to call him up tomorrow and say, ah yes, thank you for setting me up with your colleague from work, he was a great shag, very chivalrous in bed, if you have any more like him don’t hesitate to send them my way?”

“He’d probably look like you clocked him with a teakettle,” Cormoran says. “He’s always setting me up with friends of April’s but he never wants to hear details, have you noticed?”

“That’s true!” Robin says. “April is so funny, though, she’ll talk about anything with anyone, and I’ve seen Eric just get up and run away to the bar when it gets too much for him.” She grins up at him, eyes bright. “I’d love to see his face when I tell them how brilliant your tongue is.”

Cormoran wants to kiss her again. “Brilliant, is it?” he asks, voice low in his chest. 

Robin looks up at him and laughs again. “That’s what I said,” she replies, tilting her face up to be kissed. He obliges.

“But,” Robin goes on when he pulls away. “I am done for the night. You have fucked me out, Cormoran Strike, and I need a shower and some rest.”

He looks at her, a bit disappointed. “Alright,” he agrees. “That’s a good idea.” He quickly resigns himself to this being the end of his evening.

She’s stroking her fingers along his hip, and taps him there. “Would you— like to join me?” she asks. 

“Join you?” Cormoran says, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting an invitation. 

“For either, or both,” Robin says, nervous as though she thinks he might turn her down. “You’re welcome to stay.”

“Oh,” Cormoran says. “Yes. Thank you.”

She smiles at him, radiantly pleased. “Good,” she says. “For once, I’m happy we have a step-in shower. I miss baths, but you’d never be able to manage the claw-foot in my old flat with your leg.”

This is a relief, Cormoran thinks as they lay together, Robin playing with his fingers. She’s asked him to stay, and shower, and her shower probably won’t kill him. He won’t have to figure out his prosthesis or find a cab at this hour. And he doesn’t have anywhere to be in the morning, it being Sunday. If she’s amenable, perhaps they can go another round when they wake up— 

“Alright,” Robin says, interrupting his incessant brain. “If I don’t get up now, I never will.”

True to her word, she hauls herself upright, shaking her head. “Oh, I’m dizzy,” she says. “Perhaps a midnight snack is in order.”

Cormoran’s stomach rumbles in response; he hadn’t been hungry, but suddenly realizes he’s ravenous. Robin throws back her head and laughs. 

He remembers what she’d said at the pub— _“I haven’t laughed like that in a good long time, and I do so love to laugh.”_

He smiles at her, a little helplessly. He hadn’t been expecting anything from this night, and yet has found so much. 

“How about this,” Robin says, perched now on the edge of the bed, looking back at Cormoran. “I’ll go rummage up the crutch from when Martin sprained his ankle playing footy, and you can go get the shower running while I order us something to eat. Is Chinese alright? There’s a twenty-four hour place not far from here. I’ll join you in the shower, we can eat, and then pass out. I’m done in.”

Cormoran stares at Robin, and without thinking, blurts out, “I think I might love you.”

She laughs again, taking that for agreement, and leaves the room, still utterly bare.


	4. Chapter 4

Cormoran awakens to a faceful of blonde hair, a slight hangover, and a pleasant soreness in his hips. 

“Mmph,” he says articulately. The blonde hair moves away from him, and he realizes that he’s in fact spooning a warm body.

“Good morning,” Robin says as she rolls over to face him. 

“Morning,” he manages. His mouth doesn’t taste awful, which is a nice change of pace. He must have brushed his teeth the night before.

Yes, he remembers now, brushing his teeth with a brand-new toothbrush after they’d showered and eaten cheap, greasy, delicious Chinese. Robin had insisted on the toothbrushing, and then they’d fallen into bed again. He’d been asleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Beside him, Robin is stretching, pointing her toes and rolling back her shoulders. He can feel the flex of her muscles along his body, and realizes he’s only wearing his boxers. In fairness, Robin’s clad in a loose-fitting camisole and panties. 

“You said you ran hot, but I didn’t realize quite what you meant until I woke up,” Robin says, her voice still sleep-rough. “I think I’m sweaty.”

“Yeah,” Cormoran says through a jaw-cracking yawn. “It’s all this bloody hair. Traps the heat.”

Robin’s hand slides over his chest, scratching gently at the thick matting of hair that covers him. 

“Well, I’m not complaining,” she says, looking up at him through her lashes. 

In the light of day, Cormoran can see the marks he left on her neck and breasts the night before, and knows he’s probably wearing a set of half-moons across his shoulders. He can also see that Robin is really very pretty, and knows he will not be showing so favorably to clear morning eyes. 

“You don’t have to do that,” he says, clearing his throat. 

“Do what?” Robin asks, arching her brows up at him. He’s propped himself up on one elbow, and fuck, he needs a cigarette. He smoked one last night while they ate Chinese, but it’s been hours since then. 

“All that, you know,” he says, waving his free hand dismissively. “I know what I look like, Robin, you don’t have to stroke my ego.”

Her brows are as high as they can go, he thinks, as Robin gives him a look. 

“I can see you just fine, Cormoran, and I get to decide how I feel about that,” Robin says firmly. “Do I think you’re about to win any Handsomest Man contests? No, probably not. But my—”

She pauses, looks away, and looks him back in the eye. 

“My ex-husband, he’s a handsome guy, and I’ve already told you how that turned out. Handsome doesn’t mean anything. You, on the other hand? You make me laugh and— and you are absolutely the best lay of my life thus far, so.” Robin nods, a blush rising in her cheeks. “I think how you look is just fine.”

Cormoran hadn’t been expecting anything like that. “My resume is that I make you laugh and make you cum,” he says. “I can live with that. That’s honest.”

She looks at him, nibbling her lower lip. “I like honesty,” she says. “Honesty is one of my favorite virtues.”

“It’s a good one,” Cormoran agrees, enjoying having his ego stroked despite his earlier protestation. “You know what I like better than virtue, though?”

Robin gives him a look that says she is seeing right through him, but plays along. “What?”

“Vice,” he says, pulling her face in to be kissed. She’s giggling as their lips meet, but he puts some effort in and it’s transmuted quickly into a little gasp. 

“That was terrible,” she says as Cormoran scrapes his teeth along her jaw, Robin twisting her head to allow him better access. “An absolutely rubbish line, how dare you, I really demand better lines—”

Cormoran’s gently kissing his way around the hickeys he left her the night before. The worst will only linger a day or two; she’ll be able to hide it with a scarf, but he’s proud of himself for it, marking a claim he’s no real right to make. 

“Well, it worked,” he mutters into her skin, which is still faintly citrusy from their shower. 

“I don’t know, I think I was pretty well a sure thing,” she says as Cormoran gently tweaks her nipple through her top. Robin gasps, reaching for him, pulling his hair again. She likes doing that, he’s noticed, not that he minds at all. 

“No guarantees in this life,” Cormoran says, sliding his hand lower, to wrap around her hip. 

“Mm,” Robin agrees. “Oh, do that again.”

Cormoran obliges, sucking on the curve of her shoulder. Robin sighs and shifts, her hand slipping down to cup him through his boxers. His cock is making its interest very evident, and Robin’s hand on him, even with the fabric between them, feels—

“Don’t rush me,” he says into the slope of her chest, following it to her breast, where he can see the hard peak of her nipple waiting for him. “I want to take my time, this time.”

“That sounds lovely,” Robin says, restraining herself to tracing the outline of his erection with one finger. “But also, I’m hungry, and frankly I was expecting you to launch yourself up for a morning cigarette. So unless you have to rush out the door…” 

She leaves the sentence hanging between them, and Cormoran pauses just short of his goal to look up at her. 

“You had to say the word cigarette,” he sighs, and she only smiles at him, vindicated. 

“I’ll put on coffee, you go smoke, then brush your teeth again and we’ll meet back here, yeah?” she asks, her fingers still very gently exploring his cock. Cormoran looks at her as though he’s seeing her for the first time.

“That’s not— what I was expecting,” he says. “But it sounds pretty good.”

Robin blinks at him. “Oh, am I doing this wrong?” she asks, and he can see the edges of her confidence now, is reminded that she’s just out of a bad relationship, same as him. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, and trying to make sure it doesn’t. 

She said she likes honesty. So does he, especially after— everything.

“Not wrong at all,” he says, moving up to kiss her beside her mouth. “Just different. In a very good way.”

She looks at him and he kisses her again, to soothe. “For example, I can’t tell you the last time I stayed over with someone who suggested I smoke before getting her off.”

Robin snorts a laugh. “I was just thinking of how I usually wake up to my brother halfway out the window, sucking on his menthol like his life depends on it. Figured you’d be doing the same.”

“And that’s what makes you special,” he says, half-teasing, nudging her cheek with his nose. Something about her broken places makes him feel tender instead of wary, as though her brokenness makes her better-suited to him, instead of a liability. 

“Oh, flatterer,” she says, giving him a bit of a shove. “Go partake of your tobacco, so I can get my caffeine fix. You can get me off later.”

She pats his cock fondly, as though it’s a beloved housepet. He laughs.

“Is that a promise?” he asks as Robin swivels herself upright, her back to him as she rises. 

“Sure,” she says, reaching for a pair of soft-looking shorts that don’t cover much of her long, lovely legs, to his delight. “I promise you can get me off later. And if that doesn’t tell you what I see in you, Cormoran Strike, I don’t know what to say.”

He nods. “That’s a decent point,” he replies as Robin slips into an open hoodie with the logo of a band he’s never heard of emblazoned across the back. 

She rolls her eyes at him. “Most men I meet in bars have to be coerced into even considering a lady’s pleasure, or at most might fumble for my clit a bit while pounding away like a jackhammer. They do _not_ solicit promises that I will allow them to get me off.” She shakes her head, smiling. “I think if I tell _that_ to Vanessa, she’ll allow me to keep you, and she has very exacting standards, I have to say.”

Cormoran looks up at her, still on the bed. He’s surprised; he’d thought that they had sort of mutually agreed that he was a mistake that she was making on purpose, and this would be a one-time thing.

“You want to keep me?” he asks. He would normally be plotting a swift exit that a declaration like that, but from Robin’s lips it only makes him feel… warm. 

She tilts her head, making a show of looking him over. “Maybe,” she allows. “We’ll have to see after coffee and cigarettes.”

With that parting shot, Robin leaves the room. Cormoran hauls himself to the edge of the bed, where the crutch she’d found him the night before is propped against the wall. He can hear Robin humming tunelessly in the kitchen as the tap runs.

“You know,” he calls out to Robin through the half-open door. “We can never tell Wardle about this. He’ll be insufferable.”

“Pity,” Robin calls back, the tap turning off. “I was thinking I might send him a gift basket.”

Cormoran cannot stop his bark of laughter. “For introducing you to _me?_ ” he asks, balancing himself carefully and setting off for the rest of the flat. “That’s a bit of an overreaction, don't you think?”

As he comes even with the kitchen on his way to the table where his cigarettes lay, Robin meets his eyes. 

“After the way you make me cum last night, I think he’s earned some sort of gift,” she says, and the blush has returned, but she speaks with confidence. 

“Shouldn’t I be the recipient of such extravagant thanks?” he asks, sitting down at the table and bumping the window open. There’s a lighter and ashtray already nicely situated, and he thinks that Robin’s brother is a rather convenient person.

“You,” Robin says, “get _me_.”

Lighting his benson, Cormoran turns to give Robin a look up and down.

“That’s a fair point,” he says, before inhaling.

The look she gives him is scorching. Cormoran is pretty certain at this point that he's the one who owes Wardle a gift basket. 

“I might make bacon,” Robin says, peering into her fridge. “There’s not much else, I need to go the market.”

“Coffee, bacon, and sex,” Cormoran says, blowing smoke out the open window. “Robin, I think you’re the perfect woman.”

“Shut up,” she says affectionately. “Or I’ll start to think you like me just because I keep stopping for to eat.”

“I don’t know, it’s a nice thing to be fed,” he says, trying not to look like he’s rushing through his cigarette. His cock is still half-hard and he’s looking forward to getting it back inside Robin.

“Food is good and I like to eat,” Robin says, shrugging. “I used to diet all the time, with Matthew, because he had this thing about how— nevermind, it’s not important. The important thing is that I’ve sworn off dieting, especially for a man.”

“Good for you,” Cormoran says, meaning it. “Diets are bollocks.”

Robin’s smiling at him again, as though she’s pleased with herself. “So. Bacon, coffee, and sex, yeah?”

“Yes,” Cormoran agrees immediately. “And if you don’t send Wardle a gift basket, then I might.”

Robin tosses her hair over her shoulder as she gets the bacon from the fridge. “I thought we weren’t telling him?”

Cormoran takes a meditative inhalation of his cigarette. “I reserve the right to change my mind occasionally.”

She’s giggling at him as she turns on the stove to make them bacon, and the smell of the coffee is starting to waft out of the pot, and—

 _Happy,_ Cormoran thinks. _I’m happy._

It’s so unexpected that it strikes him mute for a moment. He’d walked into the pub the night before with low expectations, and had walked out with— 

“Robin.” 

He says her name, and she looks up at him.

“Yes?”

“Do you want to get dinner?”

She gives him a puzzled look, hands not ceasing in their movements. “Cormoran, I’m about to make us breakfast, and you’re already thinking about dinner?”

He shrugs, blowing out a lungful of smoke. He hadn’t thought about the question, just asked it.

“Not the point,” he says. “I don’t mean, you know, tonight. I mean at some point. In the future. Can I buy you dinner?”

Robin smiles at him, and it’s like a fucking sunrise.

“Yes,” she says. “You may.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, though I am not especially good at replying, your comments and kudos mean the world to me. Thank you for taking the time to join me in my little world <3


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